Jerry Brown

Edmund Gerald "Jerry" Brown (7 April 1938-) was Governor of California (D) from 6 January 1975 to 3 January 1983 (succeeding Ronald Reagan and preceding George Deukmejian) and from 3 January 2011, succeeding Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Biography
Edmund Gerald Brown was born in San Francisco, California in 1938, the son of Governor Pat Brown. After graduating from UC Berkeley and Yale University, he served as a member of the Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees from 1969 to 1971, and he served as Secretary of State of California from 1971 to 1975.

Governorship and presidential candidacy
In 1974, Brown was elected Governor, defeating Republican candidate Houston I. Flournoy, whose popularity was damaged as a result of his party's role in the Watergate scandal of 1972. Brown gained a reputation as a fiscal conservative and a social liberal, creating a $5 billion surplus; he lived in a cheap apartment (instead of a luxurious mansion) and either walked to work or drove a sedan (rather than take a limousine). He boosted the California Arts Council's funding by 1,300%, and he appointed more women and minorities to office than any previous governor. In 1977, he even attempted to repeal the death penalty, but this was overridden by the state legislature. After Proposition 13 - which decreased property taxes and reduced revenue to cities and counties - passed in June 1978, Brown lowered state spending and was forced to spend much of the surplus. Proposition 13 author Howard Jarvis applauded Brown's response, even campaigning for his re-election in 1978.

In 1976, Brown ran in the Democratic primary for the 1976 presidential election, but he entered the race late. Louisiana governor Edwin Edwards backed Brown's candidacy, and Louisiana was the only southern state not to back southerners Jimmy Carter or George Wallace in the primaries. Brown was forced to drop out, and he returned to governing his state. In 1979, he appointed the first openly gay US judge when he named Stephen Lachs to serve on the Los Angeles County Superior Court; he would appoint four more. He decriminalized homosexual behavior between adults, adding to his reputation as being a gay rights activist. In 1980, he again ran for president, emphasizing his support for a balanced budget, his opposition to nuclear power, and his support for the space program. However, his polling numbers suffered due to attracting the support of left-wing fringe supporters, and he lost in the primaries.

Senate defeat and doldrums
In 1982, Brown decided not to run for re-election as governor, instead hoping to run for the US Senate seat being vacated by the Republican S.I. Hayakawa. However, he was defeated by the Republican Pete Wilson, and many considered Brown's political career to be over after his defeat. He spent a few years abroad learning Buddhism in Japan and travelling to India, and he returned in 1988, when he was elected chairman of the California Democratic Party. He expanded the party's donor base and enlarged its coffers, focusing on grassroots organizing and "get out to vote" drives, but his failure to spend on TV ads contributed to Democratic losses in 1990. In 1991, he resigned from this post to run for the Senate against Alan Cranston, but he abandoned this campaign in favor of running for President in 1992. He led a grassroots campaign that sought to take back America from the "confederacy of corruption, careerism, and campaign consulting in Washington", and he called for term limits for members of the US Congress. He was a small threat for much of the campaign, again owing to his failure to effectively utilize media advertising. There would be animosity between Brown and Bill Clinton's campaigns, and Brown was the first politician to criticize Clinton over the Whitewater controversy.

Mayor of Oakland
Brown, whose political career was at a low point by the early 1990s, ran for Mayor of Oakland in 1998 as an independent, blasting the deeply corrupted two-party system. He converted Oakland's "weak mayor" political structure into a "strong mayor" structure, and the political left had found Brown as more pragmatic than progressive, more interested in downtown redevelopment and economic growth than political ideology. Brown revitalized the city and lessened its economic downturn, although his battles with bureaucracy failed in allowing for him to reform the city's schools.

Attorney General of California
In 2004, Brown filed to run for Attorney General of California, and he won the election with 56.3% of the vote. Despite personally opposing the death penalty, he fought against death penalty appeals as Attorney General, and he moved to resume capital punishment in 2010 with the execution of rapist Albert Greenwood Brown. He was also forced to betray his own principles when he refused to act on a ruling which determined that Proposition 8 (which banned same-sex marriage in the state) had violated the due process and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.

39th Governor of California
In 2010, Brown ran for Governor of California, a post which he had not held in 27 years. He ran against eBay president Meg Whitman, who was the Republican nominee; Arnold Schwarzenegger was prevented from running again due to term limits. Brown won the election with 53.8% of the vote, taking office in 2011. He prohibited protesters at funerals in reaction to protests conducted by the Westboro Baptist Church, raised the income and sales taxes (avoiding nearly $6 billion in cuts to public education), and sought to achieve water sustainability within 20 years. He won re-election in 2014 with 59.2% of the vote, defeating Neel Kashkari.